Cro Cop’s UFC return is short lived

Many long time MMA fans were happy to see Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic make his Octagon return at UFC 99 in Germany on Saturday and were cheering as he won a TKO over England’s Mostapha Al-Turk. Fans dared to believe the Cro Cop of old had returned and could make a run at the UFC title which is what he claimed he wanted to do.

However, any hopes of ever seeing Cro Cop in the UFC again have just vanished forever. According to a report from Kevin Iole at Yahoo Sports, Cro Cop, shortly after defeating Al-Turk, informed UFC President Dana White he had signed a three-fight deal with the Japan-based MMA promotion DREAM. This was a small detail he just happen to leave out when negotiating his one fight deal for UFC 99.
White commented on the situation, “Isn’t that a dirty f*ck*ng thing to do? He f*ck*d me. The first time in the history of the company I do one over the phone. He promised me a three-fight deal and he f*ck*d me.”

PRO MMA (promma.info) was on a media conference call with White and Cro Cop last week when the UFC President discussed their “great relationship” which led to the unusual one fight arrangement he worked out with Cro Cop. Obviously, now White feels betrayed.

Cro Cop had made it very clear when coming back to the UFC he wanted to make a run for the title. In fact, on the conference call he made a promise this would not be his only fight in the UFC. The problem is even though they had verbally worked out a three-fight deal, Cro Cop only signed a contract for one fight.

“He fed me this bullsh*t about wanting to take a run for the title, and what I think he did was, he went out and did this. He turned down every other f*ck*ng fighter I offered him, because I needed him to fight Cain. He didn’t just poke Al-Turk; he poked me, too,” said White.